Character Discussion: Remus John Lupin

[Hans Andréa]

No: HPFGUIDX 125669

Most of us really like Remus John Lupin. He's a very
good teacher, and he's kind to Harry and Neville. He
teaches Harry a charm that saves his life several
times: the patronus. He is extremely flawed, which
makes us sympathise with him, but at the same time
fills us with revulsion: he's a werewolf.

Have you ever noticed how often Jo mentions his
greying hair? It's five times, actually, plus once
when she mentions his "grey face". This is what gave
me the clue that he's the equivalent to the grey king
in "The Alchemical Wedding". This king is described as
"a very old king with a grey beard". There, the grey
king personifies the opposite force to the black king.
That's Snape, whom I discussed in my previous post. If
Snape personifies our shadow side, it's obvious that
Lupin personifies the opposite.

Why is he grey? Grey is the symbol of ripeness of
experience. The microcosm of a person going the Path
of Liberation has an extremely long journey behind it.
It's "old" in terms of having been through every
possible kind of experience and having learned a great
deal from that.

Grey is also the opposite of black here. As I said in
my last post, in this time-spatial universe nothing is
pure white, i.e. good in the absolute sense.
Everything here, no matter how good, is flawed. We
know that Lupin is extremely flawed. Through no fault
of his own he was bitten by a werewolf as a child. I'm
not sure why Jo has chosen lycanthropy as Lupin's
flaw. It may be just a plot device to set up the
marauders. That works extremely effectively, as I'm
sure we all agree. It explains why James was a stag,
Peter a rat, and Sirius a dog. I think the most
essential thing was to give James the ability to turn
into a stag, as that is the symbol for the longing for
liberation. Making Peter a rat was extremely
effective, as his physical presence on Ron's body
really emphasised his attachment to the old earthly
personality. Making Sirius a dog was very suitable for
allowing him to escape from prison and to sneak around
Hogwarts, and the dog is obvious from Sirius' nickname
as the "dog star".

There may be a deeper meaning behind Lupin's
lycanthropy, but the main point is that Lupin is very
flawed, as is every type of goodness on earth. For one
thing, there is no definition of what is "good". It's
very subjective and usually we define as "good"
whatever promotes our desires and "bad" as whatever
thwarts them. In fact we can only get a clear idea of
goodness by comparing it to evil. It's been discussed
many times that without evil, there would be no good.
Good and evil really hold each other in balance in
this world.

However the main point is that we're all living in a
"prison" outside of the real world. Our destination is
not INSIDE the prison but OUTSIDE of it! Hence
whatever we do inside the prison is only of temporary
benefit. The prisoners can help each other or make
things even more miserable than they are, but their
one and only task is to get OUT of the prison.

And now I'm going to say something really shocking and
controversial. If our task is to get out, but many do
gooders in the prison are working to make life as
comfortable as possible under the circumstances,
trying to forget the bad conditions, trying to forget
the radiant world of sunshine, fresh air and glorious
FREEDOM outside of the prison, then is that not
actually bad? In the opinion of the prisoners these do
gooders are making life in the prison less unbearable,
and so they're considered good, but in actual fact
they're "drugging" the prisoners into forgetting about
liberation, which is their one and only purpose. So
doing good may seem wonderful from one point of view,
but extremely evil from another. And so that's another
aspect of the grey king.

Fortunately this is one thing Lupin doesn't do! For
does he not teach Harry to invoke the patronus? In the
apprentice alchemist, Remus John Lupin personifies the
force which realises the impotence of its goodness,
the flawed nature of itself, and so encourages the new
soul to long for the fresh, cool, clear Living Water,
which will refresh it, give it new courage, and drive
off the forces that oppose it.

And so we can see that Remus has the lightest shade of
grey possible in this world. He was a friend of James
the stag and Lily the priceless flower of eternal
life. He cares greatly for their son, the new eternal
soul and helps him as much as possible. He teaches him
to concentrate his longing for liberation so much that
it becomes an all-conquering force that can overcome
the soul's attachment to the astral plane of the
fallen universe. This longing for liberation comes
from a strong desire for a goodness which has no
opposite as it does in this world. The Good in the
Real World has no opposite; it is not bipolar but
leads to the Absolute Life in the Ineffable Heights of
the Father, the Potter of the Universe.

As I said in my last post, in "The Alchemical Wedding"
the grey king has a wife who is very young and vital.
This symbolises the wonderful new opportunity the good
side of the candidate has to surrender itself to the
new soul and so enter permanent Good.

In "The Alchemical Wedding" both the black king and
the grey king and their wives voluntarily submit to
decapitation. This symbolises the end of relative evil
and relative goodness in the candidate. However their
death is the same as the death of the phoenix: it is
followed by a glorious resurrection of a new human
being, the Son of the great Architect. This is the
homecoming of the prodigal son to the Father, who
shows greater honour to the one who has fallen than to
the one who stayed at home!

Finally, once again I want to point out that Sirius'
three friends were called James (Potter), Peter
(Pettigrew) and (Remus) John (Lupin), while Jesus'
best three disciples were James, John and Peter. I
believe this is of the utmost importance in realising
what Harry Potter is really all about. Jo's flag is
firmly nailed to the mast, in my opinion.

May the world soon wake up to this!


"if I talk too freely about [if I believe in God] I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books." JK Rowling

_____________________________________

Hans Andra 
see you at Harry Potter for Seekers 
http://www.harrypotterforseekers.com


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